How My Phone Helps Me Shop

I like to do much of my gift shopping online, but I still spend plenty of time in brick and mortar stores too. On a good day of gift shopping, I'll find several gift ideas--so many that I can't remember them all. Rather than carry around a piece of paper for writing down items and prices, I just take pictures with my camera phone. I try to get the price tag in the picture too; with one picture, I can have the item, its original price, and its sale price. Much of the time, you can tell a store by its price tags, so I kinda have the store name captured in the picture as well. When I go home, I have a picture album of gift ideas. I can show those ideas to my wife or whoever needs to see them.

My phone happens to be a Windows Mobile Smartphone, so I have other options as well. For example, I use a cool tool called ShopEdge--a free program that allows me to shop Amazon from my phone. Why is that so cool? Because I have access to prices and consumer reviews when I'm in the store. Let's say I see a coffee maker on sale for $50 at WalMart. Is $50 a deal that I shouldn't pass up? Is the coffee maker a good one, or is it junk? Having quick and easy access to that information is great. You may not have a Smartphone, but you may still be able to do some of this kind of research if you have Internet access on our phone. (You won't be able to use the cool ShopEdge tool though; that's designed for Windows Mobile.) Just be aware of the charges you'll incur under your current service plan.